@Cat Familiar
Can you elaborate on this a bit? I'm not sure I feel like much of what I do in a relationship is automatic.
Thanks =)
As an example, I’m very forthright and I say what I think without sugarcoating it. My husband sometimes has doubts about whether he said something in a diplomatic way and will ask my opinion.
In the past, I could have said, “Yeah, that was rude of you to mention that.” (Unfiltered honesty on my part. If someone said this to me, I’d appreciate it, as obviously I was being clueless, and maybe next time I’d do better.)
Well, there’s this little issue of BPD, and you can imagine what would happen next…
“You hate me. You’re always criticizing me. I’m never good enough for you.”
And before I knew about BPD, I’d be thinking WTF? You asked me for a critique!
So now I hedge. “How do you feel about what you said?” “How could you have been more precise?” “What would you say differently?”
In this imagined scenario, he might press for my opinion, and I’d say something like “I’m not sure your communication was received in the way you hoped. Did you see the expression on her face? What do you think she was thinking?”
Another change that I make is that I use “I” statements rather than “you” statements.
I had an opportunity to do this last night. He asked me to do something for him that was insignificant but I didn’t want to do it. “I’m sure that someone who works for you can do it tomorrow.” In the past, I would have said, “Why don’t you do it yourself? You can easily do that instead of asking me.”
A big potential issue we often talk about here is not JADEing (Justifying, Arguing, Defending, Explaining). I’ve learned to be more assertive and have good boundaries, and to remember that “No” is a complete sentence.
By being more mindful with my speech, I’m able to nip in the bud communication issues that start going sideways. Nowadays I catch it before tensions arise. Makes for much fewer conflicts.
